Many people truly believe that it isn't possible to change their lives for the better, mostly due to the ones around them that seem to dictate how they live.

We allow them to tell us how they believe we should be living our lives and passing their judgements upon us, even though we may disagree with them, we still find it hard to "let them down".

Two years ago, I had a person once tell me she did not want to go backward in her life, and I responded by telling her that sometimes in life you have to take steps back to reroute your life.

Little did I know what that really meant...

I had built a life most would say was successful.

However, deep down I was alone with all my material goods and feeling little happiness.

Fast forward a year from when I said that, my life was forever changed for what I thought was the worst.

I was losing everything around me, and I could not understand why. I then realized through all this that I had to drop all the extra baggage in order to get up the mountain.

I had to let go of my materials and focus my time and energy on myself. This was very hard, as I was not in my comfort zone anymore. It was at this point that I realized that what I had said a year earlier made more sense.

I was taking steps back to move forward yet I had no clue what moving forward was at the time.

In November of 2016, the idea of Mellivora was born after so much of my time was spent in the wilderness. Mellivora has just turned a year old and I feel like we have already accomplished 3 years of moving forward.

I never made a commitment for the new year, however, what I did do is make a commitment to myself and others to do the best job I possibly could.

I quit social hours at breweries, I quit saying I was going to get healthy and instead did get healthy. I committed to being faithful in every aspect of my life, in other words doing right by all of whom were around me and even people I did not know.

Today is Christmas Day 2017, and looking back it has been one hell of a year for me.

I have reached goals that I could have never imagined two years ago, even with all the lows that were inconceivable for me.

I don't want people to read this and make just a New Year's resolution. I want people to read this and realize that everything we do can be long-term and that those steps that seem "backward" might be for a better future for all.

Living for the short-term goal is a fool's game, every action you take from choosing food to clothing to the people we let in our lives and the companies we support and work for must be with the intent of longevity.

If you're looking for a short-term feel-good goal, it will get you nowhere.

I challenge anyone who truly reads this to try to make 2018 the year of self-challenge and change and long term!